After months of delay, the city administration on Friday finally opened two new TransJakarta bus rapid transit routes, corridors IX and X.

Corridor IX connects Pinang Ranti in East Jakarta and Pluit in North Jakarta, and corridor X runs between Cililitan in South Jakarta and Tanjung Priok in North Jakarta.

Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said the two new routes were capable of handling 50,000 passengers a day, a figure he admitted did not go far enough in solving Jakarta’s traffic woes.

“The TransJakarta system is a part of solution to solve the problem of traffic congestion,” Fauzi said during the inauguration ceremony at a TransJakarta busway shelter along corridor IX in Tomang, West Jakarta.

The two new corridors will be served by 94 buses, bringing to 520 the size of the TransJakarta fleet.Corridor IX’s 69 regular buses and eight articulated buses will ply a route with 29 shelters and four transfer shelters. Corridor X, however, will have only 17 articulated buses stopping at a total of 25 shelters.

TransJakarta already has eight routes Corridor I runs from Blok M to Kota, corridor II from Pulogadung to Harmoni, corridor III from Kalideres to Harmoni, corridor IV from Pulogadung to Dukuh Atas, corridor V from Kampung Melayu to Ancol, corridor VI from Ragunan to Kuningan, corridor VII from Kampung Melayu to Kampung Rambutan and corridor VIII from Lebak Bulus to Harmoni.

The city dropped its initial plans to have 15 routes operating by the end of 2012, saying it would not build three more corridors next year.

The scrapped three routes are corridor XIII connecting Ciledug and Blok M in South Jakarta, Corridor XIV connecting Kalimalang in East Jakarta and Blok M, and Corridor XV connecting Depok and Manggarai in Central Jakarta.

Fauzi said at the launch of the new routes that the existing TransJakarta network would be part of a larger mass transportation network that would include a mass rapid transit (MRT) system.

Construction on the first stage of a 15.2-kilometer MRT project linking Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta and the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta is expected

to start next year and be completed in 2016.

The administration has frequently been criticized for reneging on plans to build the MRT network.

Recently, the city launched projects to build more roads, a move critics said would only encourage more people to use private vehicles.